Leroy Little Bear: Blackfoot metaphysics 'waiting in the wings'

All societies work to instill in younger generations a cultural metaphysic that includes key concepts, customs, practices and social values for the survival and continuation of the society. But is the dominant western academic cultural metaphysic still serving our needs? This keynote will explore this question by comparing western academic metaphysics to an alternative one: a Blackfoot cultural metaphysic that has developed from unique relationships to land, the ecosystem and the observable cosmos over a thousand generations in the northern plains.

Leroy Little Bear is a long-time advocate for First Nations education, having served as Director of the Harvard University Native American Program, and helping to design the Bachelor of Management in First Nations Governance at the University of Lethbridge. Little Bear was born and raised on the Blood Indian Reserve (Kainai First Nation). He was one of the first Native students to complete a program of study at the University of Lethbridge, and completed a Juris Doctor Degree at the College of Law, University of Utah. In 2003, Little Bear was awarded the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Education.

Brief video of physicist F. David Peat, author of Blackfoot Physics: A Journey into the Native American Universe